Customer Reviews

Alone I Admire

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I'm shocked, shocked to be writing the first review of this album in Janary 2005. My heart yearns for releases like this, ethereal, floating, saturated with dense waves of tone. It's like drifting into sun-streaked rainclouds, like wandering along a fog-banked beach. If you like Slowdive and crave anything written in B Minor, if you wish you could authentically cry at movies again, if you'd rather be alone with your moods than engaged in bubble-gum chitchat, if you gravitate towards the girl/guy who reads a book in a crowded room rather than mindlessly mingle - then meander into the lush soundworlds of Auburn Lull and linger. There's no rush, no pretense, no real beginnings or endings to the tracks as they weave their way through a rich textural landscape. I wish I could stare out of the window from a train in Europe with these songs on my MuVo... This is obviously not an album you'll put on casually. Like a cold swim after the hottub cranked way high, you'll want to dive into something fast, driving and lean afterwards... but while you're here, settle in, forget your stress and allow yourself the luxury to dream again.

I'm shocked, shocked to be writing the first review of this album in Janary 2005. My heart yearns for releases like this, ethereal, floating, saturated with dense waves of tone. It's like drifting into sun-streaked rainclouds, like wandering along a fog-banked beach. If you like Slowdive and crave anything written in B Minor, if you wish you could authentically cry at movies again, if you'd rather be alone with your moods than engaged in bubble-gum chitchat, if you gravitate towards the girl/guy who reads a book in a crowded room rather than mindlessly mingle - then meander into the lush soundworlds of Auburn Lull and linger. There's no rush, no pretense, no real beginnings or endings to the tracks as they weave their way through a rich textural landscape. I wish I could stare out of the window from a train in Europe with these songs on my MuVo... This is obviously not an album you'll put on casually. Like a cold swim after the hottub cranked way high, you'll want to dive into something fast, driving and lean afterwards... but while you're here, settle in, forget your stress and allow yourself the luxury to dream again.

This is one of the best space rock/atmospheric music disks released in the past 10 years. Origionally released in 1999 on Burnt Hair Records. Darla wisely rereleased this disk in 2002. This CD has stood the test of time and sounds as brilliant today as it did 6 years ago. Auburn Lull really created a work that sparkles with intensity and lush beauty.

I first discovered this cd back in 1999. As a student at Michigan State University, I'd heard one of their songs played on the college radio's "space music" broadcast. I fell for the lush, ethereal sounds instantly. Upon first listen I assumed it was from a European group, so I was surprised to find it was from 4 guys in my own backyard or more specifically Mason, Michigan. It is genuinely hard to find words to describe this album. Each song is beautiful and they flow together to create a dreamscape of sound that carries you away from where ever you are, whatever you may be doing. It is music to soothe, to dream, to live by. I can not recommend it highly enough.

No one who listened to Auburn Lull's first release, "Alone I Admire", could fail to say that it contained typical instrumentation universally associated with conventionally arranged songs; bass guitar, keyboards, drums, and two amplified guitars are prominent in the mix. But the way that Auburn Lull deploys these instruments on this release prevents its tracks from developing along linearly structured lines while simultaneously creating a deeply over-layered, saturating, richly textured, floating bed of ambience possessing a cyclical sense of directionality, with very little in the way of traditionally derived dynamic peaks and valleys, much less explosive crescendos. This is music that cocoons you, rather than sweeping you along.

Andrew Prinz of Mahogany handled the production, and the manner in which he chose to record it has a lot to do with that perception. Most of this is due to the fact that both guitars undergo heavy processing through their respective effects racks, channeled through a substantial amount of reverb, delay, echo, and chorus. And according to the liner notes on the CD cover itself, other signal processing units were used to boost this effect, with the studio miked in such a way that it sounds as if what's emerging from the playback is beamed from the deepest recesses of the universe through a wormhole that amplifies it with booming resonance upon its exit, giving it an extraordinary sense of depth. It's not so much that the band build momentum towards what crescendos exist on "Alone I Admire"; it's more like they emerge from movement in stasis.

Sean Heenan and his fellow bandmates arrange these ambient soundscapes around minor chords (augmented by a mosaic of keyboards, sustained cello tones, gentle, brushed percussion, and a myriad of tape loops), so the music has a pensive, nostalgic feel to it, reinforced somewhat by the titles of selected tracks ("Early Evening Reverie", "Blur My Thoughts Again", and "The Last Beat") as well as that of the CD itself. Nevertheless, the sheer immersive, all-enveloping quality of the production keeps it from veering into sense of universal wistfulness or sweeping melancholy; this is a soundtrack for (aurally) opiated dreaming with no fixed purpose other than to universally occupy a timeless, ecstatic, sustained moment, and for well over the past decade that's been good enough for me.

Listening to this album makes me want to jump in that car on the cover, pop in the cd, spark up a spliff and do some cruisin' on a fall day.

I purchased this album about a year ago as a recommendation, and I am eternally grateful for it. this album simply takes your breath away. gorgeous effects mixed with subdued vocals paint your mood, and make for a listen as equally engaging as it is soothing.